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Month: October 2017

Welcome to your weekly roundup of UK and Irish escape room news covering everything this site has discovered in the last week.

This site is always on the look-out for new games or venues that are opening, references in the media or anything else that might be of interest to the readers, so please do send an email if you spot anything of interest. That applies to owners too – feel free to send me your news for inclusion here. Don’t be shy!

On to the news

East of England

Escape Peterborough have announced a new venue at Priestgate Vaults. The first game, The Hunt opens this week

South East England

Escape 3600 have launched a website suggesting they’ll be opening games in Maidenhead. No dates yet.

That’s all I’m aware of. If any of the above is incorrect or if you’re aware of other news, significant discounts or competitions, then let me know via email or in the comments below and I’ll include updates in the next edition.

After an exciting conference up in Nottingham, it’s time to get back to reality. If you’re one of the lucky few who got to go and you’re feeling a bit down after all that fun then here’s your pick-me-up. Lots of new games and venues, a couple of marriage proposals and, as usual, the weekly blog listing!

This site is always on the look-out for new games or venues that are opening, references in the media or anything else that might be of interest to the readers, so please do send an email if you spot anything of interest. That applies to owners too – feel free to send me your news for inclusion here. Don’t be shy!

On to the news

National

The big news from last week was obviously the UK Escape Room Industry Conference which took place on Monday. You can find a brief write up on it here but I can tell you that everyone who attended it showered it with praise. Well done Sarah and Simon!

Red Bull put together a list of 11 “deviously difficult” escape rooms in the UK. I’ll leave it to the audience to decide whether they agree.

North West England

It’s been a while since this site has posted about a marriage proposal but given this one in Breakout Manchester made the BBC local news, it feels worthy of inclusion. I’d love to know how many proposals have now happened in UK escape rooms but I’d guess somewhere north of 100.

The briefest of hints in this Building Control Application that there will soon be another escape venue in the capital. The address is just a short walk from Liverpool Street and only a couple of blocks away from Secret Studio but as yet I have no idea what’s opening there.

Yorkshire and the Humber

The Guest House Escape Rooms have launched their website with two games announced as opening in November. This Leeds-based company have obviously decided that long names are where it’s at with the initial rooms entitled “The Extraordinary Study of Professor Wilbanks” and the comparatively brief “The Tarot Room of Madame Virtue”.

South West England

The much admired Co-decode of Swindon have announced they’ll be running a 30 minute Hallowe’en game. Get in quick – it’s only open for four days.

Eureka Escape have been operating in Penzance for a few months but it’s obviously been going well as they’re now launching just down the road in Truro with the first game entitled Death By Prescription.

Ireland

No Escape have launched in Cork. Their first game, Jungle Adventure, opened last week.

Not to be confused with Escape Rooms Suffolk, Suffolk Escape Room is a new venue located near to Ipswich. Their first game, Area 51, is set to open this week.

The Panic Room Harlow closed ENIGMA. If you haven’t played it… Don’t Panic! It’ll soon reappear over in Gravesend.

Madame Curio’s Cirque Delirium and The Outlaws of Red Rock opened at new venue Trapp’d Peterborough earlier this month.

South East England

Looks like there will be some competition for Exciting Escapes in Basingstoke. Well, if you count a twenty minute church game as competition.

Get Out Escape Rooms launched their website – no details about games or even location beyond “Kent”.

Escape Box UK is another new mobile game provider but perhaps a little bit more pedigree – the game was developed by the Hungarian company TRAP.

North East England

Seems like things have come full circle – HT to Chris Dickson of Ex Exit Games for pointing out that Cluedini are expanding to Darlington. No word yet as to the games but they’re suggesting three games to start and two more to follow.

That’s all I’m aware of. If any of the above is incorrect or if you’re aware of other news, significant discounts or competitions, then let me know via email or in the comments below and I’ll include updates in the next edition.

Wow, what an experience! Those of you who were lucky enough to get tickets to Nottingham on Monday will know just what I mean. It was an action-packed day from the moment the conference attendees arrived till when I left late in the evening (and well beyond by the sound of it!). As a non-owner, I always feels a bit strange attending these events. I’m an impostor, flitting from design talk to design talk and steering clear of the more mundane aspects of running escape rooms but maybe that means I can step back and look at things from a different perspective.

For me, the highlight session was the Daves from Bewilder Box and James from Deadlocked in Reading talking about in-game interactions. I had no idea what to expect but I really liked the clear way their messages came across. Dave Middleton’s comments around “the ancient art of dressing up” were particularly inspiring. Whatever aspect of escape room design you’re thinking of, consider whether you can put a (potentially metaphorical) costume on it to help aid the immersion. Their use of D.A.V.E., the in-room AI to dispense hints but also entertain and, when necessary, control the players showed just how creative you can get. In some rooms, the clue system is a necessary evil. A break from immersion that most players are happy to accept but the purist in me still wishes could be improved. In Bewilder Box it becomes the central pillar of the game, controlling the experience to a level that other games rarely attempt.

James, on the other hand, talked with passion (and humour!) about adaptable experiences. It was one of those great presentations where you go away thinking that what you’ve been told is both obvious and entirely new. The central theme there was how you could make games that appealed to the full range of teams from novice couples to large enthusiast teams and everything in between. How? Well, adaptable experiences obviously but what I liked was his explanation and examples of how they’d done that. His overriding principle is the need to keep the interventions invisible, in-game and in-character. I told you that it was obvious but I still went away excited about what that might mean for other games in the future. Totally unrelated to what he was saying in the session I’d also like to send kudos his way for placing a strong female central character in their first game. The gender-balance of in-game characters in escape rooms is shocking, especially given the seemingly well-balanced demographics when it comes to players. It’s great to see another game with a non-male characters front and central.

Common to both those talks was a sense of interaction which was a more general theme I picked up on throughout the day – gone are the times when sticking a few puzzles in a room was enough. We’ve moved on to a new stage in the industry where you need to be doing more to engage your players. There were plenty of talks to help you with that, not least from the Escapement. In the morning David and Lewis were showing how they’d seamlessly integrated technology into Pirates of Polaris (via the most unbelievably advanced portable escape room kit, a live demo and members of the audience) while Mica took the afternoon slot to talk about set design.

One of the sessions that I couldn’t make it along to was Alasdair from History Mystery talking about how they’d managed to build on local history to tell stories and create games. Fortunately, I managed to grab some time to chat with him and his partner Lisa later in the day covering some of what he undoubtedly said in the talk but also hearing more about their plans. If you’re ever thinking of creating a game with a strong historical backdrop then I’d highly recommend getting in touch.

Most of those people were probably talking at an escape room related conference for the first time and made a fantastic job of it but there were, of course, some of the stalwarts of the industry for whom this is old hat. Nick from Time Run opened the conference with a rerun of his Up the Game presentation on the Tools of Immersion (good news – if you missed it you can catch it on YouTube here) which was universally well received. Mink of Enter the Oubliette fame took on the controversial topic of Doing Away with Padlocks. Or was it controversial? Perhaps she wasn’t so much saying you should get rid of padlocks as think more about where they belong and whether there are ways of camouflaging padlocks in other forms. Stuart from Tulleys kicked off the downstairs conference stream with the tale of how Tulleys had taken their experiences from being a huge force in the haunt industry and applied it as new entrants to the escape room market. James Wallman, author of Stuffocation, was the one non-industry speaker at the conference, covering the experience economy and how that played into the escape room industry.

It didn’t end there though. Simon from Escapologic, one of the hosts of the conference, somehow managed to find time to put together a session on tailoring the game to the individual alongside one of his managers, Conrad. Brendan from Escape Plan in London hosted a well-received interactive session on dealing with difficult situations. Alex from the Panic Room gave us his insights on how to take your ideas and make them a reality while Jane from Norris Box and Jason from Thinking Outside the Box joined forces to talk about how to involve children in games. I loved the simple advice Jane offered of locating child-friendly puzzles as low as possible to make them appealing to kids and unappealing to their parents! It wasn’t just owners, though, Sarah Dodd (the other organiser) teamed up with me for a session on players’ perspectives while the other half of S², Sharan, headed up a panel with Mark from Really Fun, Amy from Brit of an Escape Habit and another appearance from me (I’ve got two blogs, so it’s only fair I get to talk twice, right?). Finally, there were a couple of owners’ panels to round out the conference and let everyone get a few insights from the great and the good of the industry.

And breathe… It’s hard to believe that so much was fitted into one day. 16 full sessions given by around 30 people from all aspects of the industry. What’s all the more remarkable is that all these people did it out of the goodness of their heart – they didn’t even get their expenses paid. It’s great to be part of an industry where companies are happy to support each other without expecting anything in return. Where people are willing to get up on stage and explain the secrets of their success to strangers. It leaves me filled with hope that the UK escape room industry will continue to move forward rapidly but, even better, do that cooperatively rather than competitively. Long may it continue!

To the old friends that I caught up with on the day – it was, as ever, a pleasure. To those of you who I met for the first time (at least in person!) – thanks for taking the time to chat and make the conference a great experience. To those of you with whom I didn’t manage to connect – I’m sure it won’t be long before we get the chance again but please do feel free to drop me an email and say hello.

The only question that I was left with at the end of the day? When can we do this again?

Greetings from Nottingham where the Escape Room Industry Conference is taking place today. Exciting though that is, it’s no excuse to skip letting you know about all the news in the UK and Ireland escape room industry!

This site is always on the look-out for new games or venues that are opening, references in the media or anything else that might be of interest to the readers, so please do send an email if you spot anything of interest. That applies to owners too – feel free to send me your news for inclusion here. Don’t be shy!

That’s all I’m aware of. If any of the above is incorrect or if you’re aware of other news, significant discounts or competitions, then let me know via email or in the comments below and I’ll include updates in the next edition.

This site is always on the look-out for new games or venues that are opening, references in the media or anything else that might be of interest to the readers, so please do send an email if you spot anything of interest. That applies to owners too – feel free to send me your news for inclusion here. Don’t be shy!

On to the news

National and International

Samrien Hussain, Director at Tick Tock Unlock, continues to pick up accolades. This time she’s been selected as one of seven business founders to head to Boston as part of an entrepreneurial mission.

That’s all I’m aware of. If any of the above is incorrect or if you’re aware of other news, significant discounts or competitions, then let me know via email or in the comments below and I’ll include updates in the next edition.